Matt's anxiousness grew as time was getting short for the squad. He was more curious of his father's whereabouts now and why did he hide everything he merely grew up with from him? He took out his phone, staring at the frequent calls from his father that were almost back-to-back. Then the bell rang as everyone started to get up. Inez glanced over and saw the concerned look on his face.
"Matt?" She asked. Matt glanced at her, realizing he had to tell Inez.
"I have to tell you something." He got up, as she followed beside him.
/
They went outside behind the school, when usually they weren't allowed off-campus lunch until Friday, so being outside would leave them getting infractions. But Matt didn't care, and Inez was more concerned about what he had to say.
"Inez, my dad's been trying to call me all week." He started. Inez stared at him.
"What?" Her brows furrowed.
"It started on Saturday. He's been calling me everyday since then. I think something happened to him." Matt explained, gripping his phone.
Inez pressed two fingers against her temple, "Do you think he could be here or in Cyberspace?"
"I don't know."
"I just don't know why would you hold this back from us? More importantly me?" Inez started to pace. Matt felt the guilt sink in.
"I been having bad feelings lately, and thought my dad calling me of all times was one. Besides, how would you react if your father-"
"I don't have one Matt!" Inez groaned as she was on a verge of tears. Matt drew back, realizing he nailed a sharp spot. Shit
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I did this and it really screw things up." Matt started, frantic as he shoved his hands in his pocket. "Maybe, maybe Max would know where he is or Slyder could probably dig in and find more what he's being doing all this time. Maybe, he could help us."
"That's a lot of maybes Matthew." Inez pursed her lips. Matt felt the hair stand at the end of his neck.
"If push comes to shove I will resort to last-minute choices. This will be the last biggest mistake I'll ever made." Matt promised. "I won't let this stop us from doing that needs done."
Inez shook her head, "Stop saying that like this is all about you Matt!"
Matt stopped and stared at his girlfriend. She was leaning on the wall, her hands covering her face as he could hear the soft whimpers and sobs. His heart sank. I did it again.
"Inez..." As Matt walked over and held her by the waist, his head buried in the crook of her neck. "I didn't mean to..."
She buried her head in his shoulder, not uttering a word.
"I just...think we should focus more on the matter at hand. No more about my problems. It's going to be about us fixing them." Matt swore. Inez slowly wrapped her arms around Matt as they stood in that embrace for a long moment.
/
Standing far behind the couple in the shadows, was Max. Though he was not fond of the two human beings, he was more concerned about the fate of Max and his very soon. With this, today was the beginning of the end.
His AI Lyros picked up dropped levels of electromagnetic waves and satellite connections from all around. Rapidly, Lyros began to read.
"All electromagnetic wavelengths have dropped. Spreading fast across the city and the rest of the world. Air pressure has dropped and temperature has decreases slightly. Temperature is expected to decrease dramatically to the lower degrees by tomorrow." Lyros announced.
"It started." Max's eyes narrowed. "The invasion. Hacker is going to open the portal tomorrow."
/
Matt and Inez rushed back inside, hearing commotion in the halls as all the lights were off due to an outage. With this was an immediate overhead announcement. They ran into Jackie by a chemistry lab.
"Students and staff. We are asking to please hold and work in our current situation of an outage. We are getting reports this has become a city-wide epidemic and is being resolved momentarily. Please cooperate as we look at alternative ways to resume and proceed as normal. Thank you." The principal Dr. Evans spoke. Matt gritted his teeth.
"City-wide?" Jackie folded her arms.
"Epidemic." Inez specified.
"Where is Max?" Matt looked frantically. "We're leaving now."
The two girls exchanged glanced, "You mean, ditching?"
"Uh, yeah. I'm not staying in a school with no power. This is the beginning of Hacker's invasion. We need to get to Slyder and Digit now." Matt demanded. He glanced at the SWAK watches, thankful they still worked. Unfortunately, they could not find any source of wi-fi.
"You're cutting it a bit too close, Matt." Max stepped from the crowd approaching the squad. He fixed a hard stare at the android.
"I know. Can you take us there?" Matt asked.
"I can. Though, I might warn you security has really tightened. And with other matters on hand, do not be surprise on Slyder's current status. No, he isn't dead." Max said.
Jackie drew back and refrained from responding. Her heart raced in thought of seeing him again.
"All in." Max placed a hand out in the middle. Without hesitation, Matt and the rest joined in.
"No one is going to see us right?" Jackie asked.
"No." Max said as he read the mind of Matt and transported them to Slyder's garage. They landed in a pile of junk in his backyard, quickly getting up. Inez made her way to the door first and barged in. She stood still staring at the sight before her as the other three saw where her eyes were fixed at.
Jackie stepped forward, slowly as she clutched the necklace Slyder gave her and approached the resting man. She knelt as she examined his grimy appearance; face oiled and marked with black, hair powdered with charcoal, blackened fingers, dirty work jeans and a white shirt, and following her trace down his toned arm and saw his left hand. Tears began to flow from her eyes. And then were uncontrollable sobs and tears as she knelt, clutching the shoulder of the exhausted man.
Slyder continued to sleep.
"His...hand..." Matt tried to say.
"There was an accident...Slyder's hand got decapitated in the process of cutting metal." Max explained without scanning him. "He was merely exhausted and was clumsy in this case."
Inez turned away trying to hold herself together. Matt held her in the process; feeling the hurt sink in.
"Did you do it?" Matt asked.
Max raised a brow.
"Did you fix that?" Matt turned to him. Max turned full to him, staring deep into his sharpen sapphire eyes. He felt if the boy was reading his thoughts or knew he would do that.
But who was he to openly admit to that?
"I haven't been here for days. If anything it was himself." Max denied. "Instead of discussing who did what, you should probably check your other friend."
Matt wanted to make sure, though he knew deep down he probably contributed in fixing that. He stared at the metallic hand belonging to Slyder and around him as there were scraps and tools all over. Standing in the corner was the four-foot hybrid Digit.
"Over there." Matt pointed. "Digit."